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VetMyFranchise Research · Item 17 Verified
If a dispute goes to court or arbitration, where does it happen? Franchise agreements almost always fix the venue — usually the franchisor's home turf. This report counts U.S. franchisors by the state named in their FDD Item 17 dispute-resolution clause, across 1,439 brands where our extraction of Item 17 was verified against the filing.
1,439 verified brands · 49 states · FDD Item 17
Most-named venue
California
241 brands · 16.7%
Top 3 states
34%
of verified disclosures
States represented
49
distinct venue states
Verified brands
1,439
FDD Item 17
How to read this report
Count and share of verified franchisors by venue state, most first. Sortable by count, share, or state name — click any header (both directions).
| Dispute-venue state↕ | Franchisors↓ | Share↕ |
|---|---|---|
| California | 241 | 16.7% |
| Texas | 135 | 9.4% |
| Florida | 115 | 8.0% |
| Other / non-U.S. / unspecified | 68 | 4.7% |
| Georgia | 53 | 3.7% |
| Illinois | 51 | 3.5% |
| Minnesota | 51 | 3.5% |
| Colorado | 47 | 3.3% |
| New Jersey | 47 | 3.3% |
| Ohio | 44 | 3.1% |
| Washington | 43 | 3.0% |
| Arizona | 42 | 2.9% |
| Virginia | 38 | 2.6% |
| Maryland | 36 | 2.5% |
| New York | 35 | 2.4% |
| Utah | 35 | 2.4% |
| Pennsylvania | 30 | 2.1% |
| Michigan | 29 | 2.0% |
| Wisconsin | 29 | 2.0% |
| Delaware | 26 | 1.8% |
| Nevada | 26 | 1.8% |
| North Carolina | 25 | 1.7% |
| Missouri | 20 | 1.4% |
| Tennessee | 17 | 1.2% |
| Indiana | 14 | 1.0% |
| Nebraska | 13 | 0.9% |
| Kentucky | 12 | 0.8% |
| Louisiana | 11 | 0.8% |
| Oregon | 11 | 0.8% |
| South Carolina | 11 | 0.8% |
| Massachusetts | 10 | 0.7% |
| Oklahoma | 9 | 0.6% |
| Idaho | 8 | 0.6% |
| Kansas | 8 | 0.6% |
| Connecticut | 6 | 0.4% |
| South Dakota | 6 | 0.4% |
| Rhode Island | 5 | 0.3% |
| Wyoming | 5 | 0.3% |
| Maine | 4 | 0.3% |
| Alabama | 3 | 0.2% |
| Arkansas | 3 | 0.2% |
| Iowa | 3 | 0.2% |
| Mississippi | 3 | 0.2% |
| Montana | 3 | 0.2% |
| District of Columbia | 2 | 0.1% |
| New Hampshire | 2 | 0.1% |
| Alaska | 1 | 0.1% |
| New Mexico | 1 | 0.1% |
| North Dakota | 1 | 0.1% |
| Vermont | 1 | 0.1% |
Click any column header to sort ·
50
rows
shown
Methodology
Source. Franchise Disclosure Document, Item 17 (Renewal, Termination, Transfer, and Dispute Resolution). We count each franchisor once by the required venue for litigation or arbitration disclosed in its Item 17 clause.
Sample. n = 1,439 verified brands. Ranked from franchises where our extraction of Item 17 was verified against the filing — an independent AI judge (a different model family, to reduce shared bias) confirmed the value against the source text. Brands without a verified Item 17 dispute-venue disclosure are excluded; unverified and legacy values never enter this count.
Normalization. Free-text venue disclosures (a bare state, a county, a city, a postal "City, ST", or a full arbitration clause) are each mapped to a single U.S. state. 68 disclosures name a foreign venue or a relative venue (such as "the county where the franchisor maintains its principal place of business") that resolves to no single state; these are grouped as "Other / non-U.S. / unspecified" and always listed last.
Cite this. Please attribute figures to "VetMyFranchise, Item 17 Dispute Venue Report 2026" and link to this page.
Venue is one line of Item 17 — governing law, arbitration rules, jury-trial waivers, and fee-shifting sit right beside it. For one brand's full dispute-resolution terms plus fees, Item 19 earnings, litigation history, and a buyer verdict, our 12-section FDD analysis is $49 per report, or three for $99.
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